IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v2y1974i2p202-222.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Long-Run Growth of Nondefense Government Expenditures in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • A. Dale Tussing

    (Syracuse University)

  • John A. Henning

    (Syracuse University)

Abstract

To test a number of hypotheses regarding determinants of long-run trends Abstract in nondefense government expenditures, regression equations were estimated by the method of least squares using the following dependent variables: government purchases of goods and services (i.e., resource-using public expenditures) excluding defense; government transfer payments; and nondefense public expenditures, the sum of the first two. All were deflated for price level change and population growth. Three periods were used: 1900-1928, 1929-1969, and 1900-1969. The research tends to validate the influence of "Baumol's Disease, " which implies exponential growth of public expenditures on account of price effects due to a systematic public-private productivity-growth differential. The results cast doubt on the Peacock-Wiseman "displacement effect," which holds that public expenditures grow more rapidly than normally, immediately following wars or other "social upheavals, " because these events shift taxpayers' notions of maximum tolerable levels of taxation.

Suggested Citation

  • A. Dale Tussing & John A. Henning, 1974. "Long-Run Growth of Nondefense Government Expenditures in the United States," Public Finance Review, , vol. 2(2), pages 202-222, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:2:y:1974:i:2:p:202-222
    DOI: 10.1177/109114217400200203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/109114217400200203
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/109114217400200203?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John W. Kendrick, 1961. "Productivity Trends in the United States," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number kend61-1, March.
    2. M. Slade Kendrick & Mark Wehle, 1955. "A Century and a Half of Federal Expenditures," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number kend55-1, March.
    3. Alan T. Peacock & Jack Wiseman, 1961. "The Growth of Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number peac61-1, March.
    4. M. Slade Kendrick & Mark Wehle, 1955. "Introduction to "A Century and a Half of Federal Expenditures"," NBER Chapters, in: A Century and a Half of Federal Expenditures, pages 1-2, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. McMahon, Walter W, 1971. "Cyclical Growth of Public Expenditure," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 26(1), pages 75-105.
    6. J. Veverka, 1963. "The Growth Of Government Expenditure In The United Kingdom Since 1790," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 10(1), pages 111-127, February.
    7. Bird, Richard M, 1971. "Wagner's o Law' of Expanding State Activity," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 26(1), pages 1-26.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Massimo Florio & Sara Colautti, 2001. "A logistic growth law for government expenditures: an explanatory analysis," Departmental Working Papers 2001-13, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    2. Manuel Jaén García & Luis Palma Martos, "undated". "Public Expenditure Dynamics In Spain: A Simplified Model Of Its Determinants," Working Papers 9-04 Classification-JEL :, Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.
    3. Manuel Ja n-Garc a, 2017. "A Demand Determinants Model for Public Spending in Spain," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 7(4), pages 372-386.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rockoff, Hugh, 1999. "World War II and the growth of the U.S. federal government," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 245-262, April.
    2. Allan Feldman, 1985. "A model of majority voting and growth in government expenditure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 3-17, January.
    3. Dennis J. Mahar & Fernando A. Rezende, 1975. "The Growth and Pattern of Public Expenditure in Brazil, 1920–1969," Public Finance Review, , vol. 3(4), pages 380-399, October.
    4. Nicholas Odhiambo, 2015. "Government Expenditure and Economic Growth in South Africa: an Empirical Investigation," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 43(3), pages 393-406, September.
    5. Zachary Selden, 2010. "Power is Always in Fashion: State-Centric Realism and the European Security and Defence Policy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48, pages 397-416, March.
    6. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Nielsen, Ingrid & Smyth, Russell, 2008. "Panel data, cointegration, causality and Wagner's law: Empirical evidence from Chinese provinces," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 297-307, June.
    7. Dimitrios Paparas & Christian Richter & Ioannis Kostakis, 2019. "The validity of Wagner’s Law in the United Kingdom during the Last Two Centuries," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 269-291, April.
    8. Olayiwola, Saheed O. & Bakare-Aremu, Tunde Abubakar & Abiodun, S.O., 2021. "Public Health Expenditure and Economic Growth in Nigeria: Testing of Wagner's Hypothesis," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 9(2), April.
    9. Bağdigen, Muhlis & Çetintaş, Hakan, 2003. "Causality between Public Expenditure and Economic Growth: The Turkish Case," MPRA Paper 8576, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 07 Dec 2003.
    10. Richard Sylla, 1986. "Long-Term Trends in State and Local Finance: Sources and Uses of Funds in North Carolina, 1800-1977," NBER Chapters, in: Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, pages 819-868, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Ryan C. Amacher & Robert D. Tollison & Thomas D. Willett, 1975. "A Budget Size in a Democracy: A Review of the Arguments," Public Finance Review, , vol. 3(2), pages 99-122, April.
    12. Christian Richter & Dimitrios Paparas, 2012. "The validity of Wagner’s Law in Greece during the last 2 centuries," Working Papers 2012.2, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    13. Pistoresi, Barbara & Rinaldi, Alberto & Salsano, Francesco, 2017. "Government spending and its components in Italy, 1862–2009: Drivers and policy implications," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 1117-1140.
    14. Mthokozisi Mlilo & Matamela Netshikulwe, 2017. "Re-testing Wagner's Law: Structural breaks and disaggregated data for South Africa," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 9(4), pages 49-61.
    15. Kumar, Saten, 2009. "Further Evidence on Public Spending and Economic Growth in East Asian Countries," MPRA Paper 19298, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Barbara Pistoresi & Alberto Rinaldi & Francesco Salsano, 2015. "Government expenditure and economic development: evidence from Italy 1862-2009," Department of Economics 0065, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    17. Silvia Fedeli, 2015. "The Impact of GDP on Health Care Expenditure: The Case of Italy (1982–2009)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(2), pages 347-370, June.
    18. Alfred Cuzán & Richard Heggen, 1985. "Expenditures and votes: In search of downward-sloping curves in the United States and Great Britain," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 19-34, January.
    19. Sohrab Abizadeh, 1988. "Economic development and income elasticity of demand for ‘government’," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 15-43, February.
    20. Paul R. Blackley, 2003. "Price versus Income Effects as Sources of Growth in Government's Share of GDP," Public Finance Review, , vol. 31(3), pages 241-262, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:2:y:1974:i:2:p:202-222. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.